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JACK BENNY PROGRAM, THE / aka THE LUCKY STRIKE PROGRAM - Rose Bowl Parade

Air Date/Released Sunday, January 2, 1955
Station/Studio CBS (radio)
Host/Star Jack Benny
Featuring Joe Besser (Solo)

Jack Benny 1930s - 1950s radio show, noteworthy for the characters and characterizations that made his show a Sunday night favorite. Benny’s regular cast of characters included girlfriend Mary Livingstone (Jack’s real-life wife), vocalist Dennis Day, bandleader Bob Crosby, announcer Don Wilson, and valet Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson. A trademark of the show was its ensemble chemistry, and writers that wrote as much for the supporting cast’s comic characterizations as they did for the star… e.g., Day as the dumb kid, good-natured Crosby as the bandleader who still can’t get the knack of the band he inherited from Phil Harris, Mary with a wisecrack at the ready to deflate Jack’s vanity, etc.

Jack discusses the orchestra’s behavior with Bob, demanding stricter rules for their conduct and sobriety. It’s almost time for the broadcast and the script is late, the cue for an excitable script clerk (Joe Besser) to enter, complaining that there’s “No organization!” Jack can’t get Dennis to answer him, only to learn that’s the price of demanding he be a completely different person for the new year… and he is… he’s no longer Dennis, he’s Julius, Orange Julius. Dennis sings “The Little Shoemaker.” Jack tells Don the story of taking his New Year’s date Gertrude Gearshift to the Rose Bowl game. Arriving in Pasadena, Rochester, Jack and Gertrude watch the Rose Bowl Parade going by, with the Sportsmen Quartet atop one of the floats singing a Lucky Strike commercial to the tune of “American Patrol.” Mel Blanc appears as a drunk who can’t find his wife, missing for 19 years, and he’s just started looking. Trying to cross the parade route, the Maxwell won’t cooperate and winds up stuck in the middle of the Rose Bowl Parade being pulled by a float.


Recorded on October 22, 1954.

Cast: Jack Benny (Himself), Don Wilson (Announcer), Eddie Anderson (Rochester Van Jones), Dennis Day (Himself, as Orange Julius), Bob Crosby (Himself), Joe Besser (Script clerk), Mel Blanc (The Maxwell, the drunk), Bill Days, Gurney Bell, Martin Sperzel, Jay Meyer (The Sportsmen Quartet), Bea Benaderet (Gertrude Gearshift), Charlie Bagby (Himself), Artie Auerbach (Mr. Kitzel), Jeanette Eymann (Mother), Jimmy Baird (Whitney)

Crew: Hilliard Marks (Producer), John Tackaberry, George Balzer, Al Gordon, Hal Goldman, Sam Perrin (Writers), Mahlon Merrick (Musical Director)
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